This week in pre-school we enjoyed Julia Donaldson's story, "What the ladybird heard?'

A witty adventure of two crafty robbers, one tiny ladybird and a whole farmyard of fun!

The children enjoyed the story and creating their own paper plate ladybirds. We used some ladybirds and their spots to build on our counting skills.  The children have been working hard to count and say the numbers in sequence up to 10.  We then counted the spots on the ladybirds and placed them by the correct number.  Counting small groups of everyday objects at home is a really good way to teach children that the last number they reach tells us how many objects there are.  

On Tuesday we honored Remembrance Day in our own way, creating a pre-school wreath and our own poppy artwork.  We then took part in the 2-minute silence by watching a beautiful animation following a young rabbit through the poppy fields.  It gave the children an age-appropriate understanding of peace and hope.

Our phonics sessions had a theme of Little Red Riding Hood.  The children have enjoyed using instruments that helped them to tell the story or move like a character. Using our listening skills to move in time to a fast or slow beat.

A reminder that we need a waterproof coat and a pair of wellies for your child for them to enjoy outside play in all weather.

Some dates for your diary;

Wednesday 17^th December - Save the Children Christmas Jumper Day

Friday 19th December  - Lights, Camel, Action 2! The Sequin! at the church

12:30pm - Last day of term and children can be collected from 1.15pm.

Friday 19th December  - Lights, Camel, Action 2! The Sequin!  - Last day of term. Children can be collected from 1.15pm

Monday 22nd December - Friday 2nd January - Christmas Break

Storytellers have had a wonderfully busy day in nursery, full of baking, creativity and community spirit. The children worked together beautifully, taking turns to mix ingredients, spoon out cake batter and carefully decorate their sweet treats. Our art table was just as lively, with everyone colouring their own Pudsey Bears to help brighten up our nursery stall. When the cakes were ready, the children proudly helped set up the stall and were so excited to "sell" their bakes to families and friends. They showed fantastic confidence, lovely manners and a real sense of teamwork throughout the whole afternoon. We are incredibly proud of our little Storytellers for their hard work, enthusiasm and the joy they brought to our Children in Need fundraising.

Well done, everyone! We raised an amazing £99 as a group effort. 

It's been a busy week in school, filled with meaningful activities and plenty of colour! Thank you for sending your children in for a cosy day today in their PJs, spots, or bright colours. We are delighted to share that we raised £150 for Children in Need. As part of Anti-Bullying Week, pupils took part in thoughtful discussions in both assemblies and classrooms about what bullying means to us and how we can use our "Power for Good" to stand up against bullying, whether face-to-face or online. We were also very proud of the respect the children showed during the two-minute silence on Tuesday at 11am, as well as the interest and maturity they demonstrated during Rev Richard's Remembrance assembly in the afternoon.

Thank you to all the parents and carers who met with their child's teacher this week. It was a valuable opportunity to hear about the progress pupils are making, the learning they are enjoying, and the ways you can support them at home.

We are entering a very busy time of year and here are the dates of upcoming events for your diary. Further details will follow. Dates are also on our online events diary on this website.
• Christmas Gift MUFTI day - Wednesday 3rd December (see details below under Christmas Gift Room)
• Christmas Fair - Friday 5th December FOPS are currently busy organising our Christmas Fair which will be on Friday 5th December starting at 2.00 pm. We would be grateful for donations of raffle prizes, good condition toys to sell and teddies for the teddy tombola.
• Polperro Lights Switch On - Saturday 6th December The children will be making willow lanterns in school, kindly funded by the Polperro Christmas Lights Committee, for the Lantern Parade from the Village Hall (more details to follow).
• CHRISTMAS PERFORMANCES (in the school hall)
Penhallow Class Nativity Play - Tuesday 9th December at 11am and 2.00 pm.
Landaviddy Class Christmas Play - Thursday 11th December at 2.00 pm and 6.00 pm.
Talland Class and Chaipel Class Christmas Play (joint performance) - Monday 15th December at 2.00 pm and 6.00 pm.
• Christmas Jumper Day Thursday 11th December We are holding our Christmas Jumper Day in aid of the charity 'Save The Children' on Thursday 11th December. We ask for a £1.00 donation for this non-uniform day. We will provide opportunities for children to add some sparkle to a plain jumper if they do not already have a Christmas top to wear.
•  Christmas Gift Room On, Wednesday 17th December, during the school morning, Santa's Workshop will be opening its doors for the children to choose a special gift or two for someone they love. Each gift will cost £2 (maximum of 2 gifts per child). Santa's helpful elves will be on hand to wrap the presents, ready to bring home at the end of the day, perfect to pop under your Christmas tree! To help make this possible, we'll be holding a Christmas Mufti Day on Wednesday 3rd December. Children can come to school in their favourite festive clothes in exchange for a donation of new or unused items (2 items if possible). Gift ideas include chocolates, toiletries, socks, notebooks or any small items you'd be happy to receive yourself. (Please no alcohol, thank you!). All profits will go to the school.
• Christmas Lunch Wednesday 17th December The Christmas lunch will be held on Wednesday 17th December this year. The menu will be on Parent Pay shortly, we will advise you when.

Have a lovely weekend. 

Hello Everyone,

This week we have been getting creative in our art lessons, looking at patterns and colours in our Tinga Tinga art and creating our own animals. 

In Geography we have been continuing to learn about the continents of the world and have focussed this week on Europe.

In English, we have finished our unit of work on Little Red Riding Hood, and have created our own innovated versions of the story.

Thank you to those who attended our parent/teacher consultations. It was lovely to find out more about your children, and to share their learning with you.

We hope you have a lovely weekend,

from The Penhallow Team.

Dear all!

We have been very busy as always in Year 3!  

We finished our art project where the children made their own papyrus paper and then designed their own scroll.  This half term as part of DT, they will be designing and making their own sarcophagus!

In English, we have been following the story of Tadeo Jones and the children will be writing their own version this week.


In maths, the children are still working on addition and subtraction!  Please do not forget that for homework, there are assignments set on Mathletics!

For Whole Class Reading lessons, the children have been learning about emotions which ties in nicely with our PSHE unit "families" and how to resolve conflicts!

In French, the children are learning about different flavour ice creams!  They used our Outdoor Orienteering Markers to find the days of the week in French too!

In Geography, the children are learning all about the River Niles and it's features!  They will be writing about the journey of a tiny droplet later this week!


We will begin our Christmas Service practise soon - please watch out for dates of when the service is at the church!

That is all for now!

Mrs Brewer, Mrs Miller and Mr Liddement.

A huge thank you to the large number of our wonderful school community who turned out for the Saltash Town Christmas Light Switch-On on Friday evening.

It was truly incredible to see so many Brunel children looking so smart, festive and full of Christmas spirit!

Our children sang beautifully, filling the town with the sound of Christmas cheer.

Their performances of Silent Night, O Little Town of Bethlehem and The First Noel were absolutely magical and created such a warm, joyful atmosphere.

They represented our school with pride, confidence and kindness throughout and their behaviour was exemplary from start to finish.

We are immensely thankful to every child who came along to perform and to all the families who supported this wonderful community event.

Your presence made the evening even more special, and it was heart-warming to see so many smiling faces joining together to celebrate the beginning of the festive season.

The Christmas period has officially commenced-and what a fantastic way to start!

We're excited to welcome families back for this half term's Parent Cafe at Brunel Primary and Nursery Academy.

It takes place this Tuesday at 9am.

This session will be led by Lucy King from the Cognition and Learning Team, who will be sharing helpful insights and support for our school community. Come along for a warm drink, a friendly chat, and valuable guidance. We can't wait to see you there!

We have had a wonderful week here in Lantic class where we have paid our respects for Remembrance day and created the most beautiful art work to display outside. We were very careful when we made our poppies.

In Maths, we have explored place value and learnt to count to 100! We have been comparing numbers using greater than and less than.

In English, we've been learning about Jack and the beanstalk, creating our own class story version which we rehearsed using actions. We have also been swimming every day this week which has been so wonderful and the children enjoyed this so much. They made so much progress it was amazing to see.

Next week, we will be getting lines sent home for the Christmas Play which is called 'The Fleece Force'. Be ready to receive lots of song lyrics to practise at home! Have a lovely weekend and we will enjoy more fun next week.

Mrs Scott, Mrs Quick and Miss Sleep.

Duckpool Update

What a busy week!

Firstly, it was Anti-Bullying Week, which we introduced with Odd Socks day on Monday to celebrate our differences.

We've commemorated Remembrance Day on Tuesday with a special assembly for everyone in our Brunel Primary community. There were poppies in abundance, which made a truly striking splash of colour on a dull November day.

There was also a cyber security workshop run by the RAF and organised by Miss Henning, which was a huge success.

Wednesday brought more excitement, for a group from our class went to Looe to film for next year's Beyond Paradise Christmas Special. Wow we can't wait to see it!

Then on Friday we supported Children in Need 2025 by collecting all our loose change to donate. Well, Duckpool, what a generous class you are! We were absolutely astounded by the amount collected. Thank you so much to our wonderful, supportive families. During the evening, we met at the Guild Hall for the Christmas Light Switch-on and the early chance to practise some carols. 

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Another busy week in Chaipel! Christmas play preparations are underway and the children have been given their scripts and song words to begin practising. We are going to perform a Polperro Primary favourite: SANTA'S ON STRIKE! Please could you support your child in learning their lines as the performance will definitely be one to remember!!

In Maths this week, Chaipel began the week with learning how to calculate using the long division method - challenging at first, but by Thursday, we were pretty good at it! We ended the week with Shape and are now beginning to confidently use a protractor. This will continue next week, along with probelm-solving using all four operations. 

In English, we have completed our non-fiction, double-page spread on the relationship between the Sun, Earth and Moon and have moved onto immersing ourselves in our next unit - writing a Mayan narrative (with a twist) based on the Maya folktale, THE HERO TWINS! 

In our Wider Curriculum, we have investigated the qualities for a saviour in RE, tinkered with creating a soundtrack in Computing, developed our target skills in Dodgeball and begun to learn about why we need energy in Science.

As part of Anti Bullying Week, Chaipel looked into the importance of using our 'powers for good'; we wore Odd Socks on Monday to celebrate our recognition that everyone is different and unique but equally important.

POLITE REMINDER
Next Thursday is our highly-anticipated school trip to I CAN COCOA in St Ives. We will be leaving school at 8:30am so please could you make sure that children are in school by 8:15am. We will leave St Ives at about 3pm and return to school by approximately 4:30pm. 

Congratulations to Isaac and Tristan for being our People of the Week, demonstrating our school value of 'being curious' when it comes to their learning.

I have attached this half term's homework grid as well as the KIRFs and the Curriculum Spellings that need to be learnt. 

Have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday!

Miss Randle and Mrs Clary.

This week has flown by in Landaviddy class. Christmas play preparations have begun! All the children were given their parts and scripts on Thursday, and we practised our first rehearsal today. Please make sure you are practising your lines at home as we will be spending time rehearsing over the coming weeks. In PE, we have been enjoying building upon our ball skills in Netball with Mrs Hillman. Finally, during PSHE we have been considering responsible and irresponsible choices, particularly regarding friendships.

During English this week, we designed and described our own Stone Age character ready for our own narratives. We have started to plan our stories and can't wait to start writing these next week. In Maths this week, we have been working hard on column addition and subtraction. All the children have demonstrated excellent determination and all grown in confidence when applying this written method. Next week, we will build on this by learning how to use the method when exchanging.

Please find attached below this half term's Knowledge Web and KIRFS (this will be sent home next week).

Congratulations to Finn and Jemima for being chosen as Landaviddy's People of the Week.

We hope you have a restful weekend and look forward to seeing you on Monday.

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Lister and Miss Colton

This week in Year 1 has been full of exciting learning across all areas of the curriculum!

In English, the children have been focusing on instructional writing. They have been working hard to write clear, effective opening sentences for instructions, thinking carefully about using bossy (imperative) verbs and ensuring their writing is easy for the reader to follow. The class has enjoyed exploring real-life examples of instructions and discussing what makes them successful.

In Maths, we have been developing our understanding of place value, particularly tens and ones. The children have been using practical resources such as dienes and place value charts to build, partition, and compare numbers. This hands-on approach has helped them deepen their confidence with recognising how numbers are structured.

During PSHE, Year 1 have been looking at differences between people and discussing what makes us all unique. The children have shown great maturity while exploring how differences should be celebrated and how kindness and respect help everyone feel valued in our school community.

In PE, the children have been having lots of fun creating their own firework-themed dance sequences. They have experimented with different movements to represent fireworks-such as spirals, bursts, and fizzing actions-while working both independently and in small groups. Their creativity has really shone through!

The class has also been busy practising their Nativity songs, and their enthusiasm has been wonderful to see. The children are learning the words beautifully and are excited to perform for families very soon.

As part of our History learning, Year 1 have been exploring the timeline of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. They have been learning about the key events, why Bonfire Night is celebrated, and how life in the past was different from today.

We also enjoyed singing with Mrs Butlin, where the children joined in with songs and actions, developing their listening and performance skills.

In Art, the children explored texture by creating rubbings using leaves, classroom objects, and textured materials. They experimented with colour and pattern, and produced some fantastic detailed rubbings to share with the class.

It has been a busy and productive week in Year 1, and we are incredibly proud of everything the children have achieved!

Reception have been busy showing us their fantastic phonics knowledge, completing assessments and also learning about Remembrance Day!